Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 10 – In recent months, the Lukashenka government has devoted more attention than in the past to the activities of the Roman Catholic Church there, an effort clearly intended to suggest that Catholics are part of the life of Belarus but a move that some fears the regime will use to expand its interference in and control of the hierarchy.
According to the Belarus2020 portal, the Lukashenka regime’s media outlets have been covering key events in the life of the Roman Catholic community with some government officials even taking part in such activities (belarus2020.churchby.infome/belarusskij-kostyol-pytayutsya-vstroit-v-gosudarstvennuyu-sistemu-chem-eto-opasno/).
In response, some Roman Catholic clergy have been taking part in government organized events, moves that have suggested to some observers that the Lukashenka regime and the Roman Catholic hierarchy are coming together after being at odds over many issues for many years. But other Catholics are worried that all this presages regime plans to interfere in church life.
“The process of the integration of the Catholic church into the government system is fraught with the loss of a certain independence,” they say; and is dangerous because the state organs can try ever more often to control the life of Catholics” and move in the direction of “the Chinese model” where the state controls everything including the appointment of bishops.
That is a very real risk, one sometimes ignored by those who take the apparent rapprochement at face value.
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